Looking for recommendations re: assistive technology for dyslexia and dysgraphia. What works well for your children?

So far, DD10 does well with typing her work and using Ginger software for editing. She reads quite well, considering her issues, but she admits that she skips the words she does not know and it keeps her from understanding a lot of what she reads. We have encouraged her to use dictionaries, etc but this takes too long. There are few books that interest her available for e-readers. We have been thinking about purchasing a Reading Pen to assist her. Has anyone tried one?

She loves to use our iPad. It would be great to find ways to use it for maximum benefit for her. Any suggestions are welcome!

I'd think a speech-to-text dictionary on the iPad may help a bunch.

k's mum, I'm on my way out at the moment but will be back later and fill you in on the AT our dysgraphic ds12 uses - he's switched over almost completely to the iPad this year and it's going well. Do you have an iPad 1, 2, or 3?

I'm curious about the "Reading Pen" - can you tell us what that is? My youngest dd isn't dyslexic but has a challenge with visual associative memory and I'm wondering if it's something that might be useful for her.

polarbear

We have an iPad 3.

Here is a link to the reading pen: http://www.wizcomtech.com/eng/catalog/a/readingpen2/

She reads all day long, in the car, on the bus, in the tub, during math class, etc. she always has a book in her hand. But, she acknowledges that she skips the words she doesn't know. The problem is that she wants to read difficult books, which are full of unfamiliar words. She has a fantastic ability to memorize the picture of a word, once she can say it out loud. I thought this pen could help give her independence and allow her to add new words to her vocabulary.

We are waiting until middle school to get her a laptop. Hoping we can have her using an iPad instead. It seems to have more options for kids with learning challenges.

My dd is using Dragon SPeak Naturally, ToonTastic (for story telling), evernote(for note taking and recording minilessons), and a few other apps that I can't recall. She is getting better and better with practice using dragon speak and she uses reading ally to download books for listening while she follows along with the book. She is dyslexic and dysgraphic. It gives her independence with homework...and I LOVE that. She is so much happier when she can do all her own work without help.

She has the reading pen, but gets frustrated because it tends to only read a certain size font and only on black and white pages.

I am SO excited to be reading all these posts! We are awaiting DD7's AT eval which should hopefully happen any day. She was recently given a para to help with scribing, reading instructions, giving her oral spelling tests, etc. She is using an old fashioned tape recorder and books on tape for enrichment breaks to listen to high level texts since no one could figure out an ebook option. We bought Dragon over the summer and got her a desktop last year so she could start to get comfortable with keyboarding. She gets easily frustrated, though. Fine motor and visual perception issues combine with her dyslexia and dysgraphia to make this all seem overwhelming - especially to someone as non-techy as me. Would an iPad be worth considering for a second grader? Anything else I should specifically ask for as part of the AT eval?

I'm back! Thanks for the link to the Reading Pen

My first notes are in reference to my ds12, and he's dysgraphic but not dyslexic, so he isn't using any AT specific to reading, although he does read books on his iPad. We've noticed good things and not-so-great things about reading on the iPad for kids who *don't* need audiobooks. We like the convenience - since he's using the iPad for school, it's easier to have his books on the iPad and not have to have a book left behind at either home or school when he's in the other place. The downside is we don't let him take the iPad to bed, and he likes to read himself to sleep at night... so he's lost that comfort thing when he's reading a book on the iPad plus... I noticed he doesn't read books as quickly as he does when he takes them to bed and reads instead of sleeping lol.

For dysgraphia, he was using a laptop in school up until this year. He wasn't terribly successful using Dragon on the laptop (although he wanted to use it). He had word prediction software but also didn't like to use it because it disabled the arrow keys that are usually used to move the cursor around with, and he found that very inconvenient. When he did use his word prediction software (Co:Writer) it made a huge difference in the quality of his spelling/punctuation etc and the overall quality of his writing was better. He used Efofex for math, mostly the graphing package. He has a Live Scribe pen for note-taking which was the default note-taking plan when he was using the laptop... but he never really used it but instead was able to rely on his memory (which is incredible).

This year all the kids in his grade are using iPads for school, so he's had to switch, and it's actually working out great. He has an iPad 3, but really the only thing that he's using on the iPad 3 that's not available on an iPad 1 is the camera. He uses the camera to take pictures of the daily homework assignments (which are written on the board and which he has a terrible time trying to copy by hand or by typing). He also uses the camera to "scan" documents to pdf (uses the "JotNot" app). It's quick and easy. He types on his pdf files in an app that I think is called "Type on PDF" - I can't remember for sure, and his iPad is at school at the moment What's really made a huge impact though is voice-to-text on the iPad - as long as he has internet access it works *really* really well for him. He started with Dragon but then realized that there is a built-in voice-to-text that works just as well (it's accessed via the key that has a microphone picture on the iPad keyboard). The downside to using Dragon is you have to "write" in Dragon and then send the text to whatever final doc you want it in - not a huge step but an extra step. He's able to use the iPad built-in voice-to-text in all of his apps that he uses for school so he bypasses having to move text around. Using voice-to-text also for the most part entirely eliminates the step of spell-correcting his work, which is huge for him because his spelling really breaks down while writing. He can spell well, but it takes a long time to go back through a document he's completely written and correct all the misspellings as well as missed capital letters and missed punctuation. He's also able to simply get his ideas out faster with voice-to-text, which is HUGE For him

FWIW, we didn't buy an iPad with Gs... the kids at ds school have wireless access there, and we've got wifi at home.

DS also has Evernote - we'd read good reviews about it for notetaking and it looks great. He's played around with the recording option a little bit, but he still hasn't practiced taking notes at school yet. That's on our list but he hasn't gotten to it yet. He's in 7th grade this year and in English they have just started getting instruction on taking notes as part of their curriculum... and the teacher made him take notes with handwriting (picture me banging my head into the wall)... because... he thought I would want him to have the extra practice... argh.. anyway, we have that cleared up now and possibly within the next few months we'll have some feedback on his note-taking experiences on the iPad

He's using the iCal calendar for scheduling.

The only other thing I can think of re dysgraphia and the iPad is that ds seems to be able to manipulate the spell-correct easier than using spell-check in MSWord (laptop) - but his challenge isn't spelling, it's spelling-while-writing, so he can recognize words that are misspelled. I think it would be more difficult to use for a child who doesn't know how to spell.

There are word-prediction options for the iPad too - ds isn't using them though so I can't remember the names of what we looked at. I do remember that what we looked at seemed to be more geared toward dyslexic+dysgraphic students... so there may be something out there that would work well for your dd

polarbear

This reply is about my dd8 who reads via audio and is challenged with visual reading. She has a Kindle, which she likes and she listens to audiobooks on it - although I am not fond of having to buy a ton of audiobooks She will also listen to books on my iPad 1, and she's ok with it although she prefers the voices on true audiobooks over the iPad computer voice. The nice thing about the iPad is you can find quite a few classic books at very low cost.

I've thought about signing her up for Learning Ally - www.learningally.org, but haven't actually done it yet.

I'm very interested in what others suggest, as we're still trying to find solutions for her

polarbear

Mamabear - is it called "reading ally" or "learning ally?" I found "learning ally" but can't find one called "reading ally" and just want to make sure I got the right one. Thanks!

I just read Pemberley's post and have a few thoughts for you Pemb

One thing that I think might be useful in an iPad for a 2nd grader is the size of the keyboard when she's learning to type. DS uses a bluetooth keyboard for most of his iPad work, and it's smaller than a regular sized laptop keyboard (or at least it looks smaller!).. so it might be easier for a young child with small hands.

We were also told when ds started to learn to type (summer after 2nd grade) that it was best to let him come up with his own set of fingering rather than trying to master traditional touch typing. A lot of kids use just their thumb and first finger to type with. Our ds didn't go for that - the software shows the traditional fingering and ds is kind of a stickler for following directions so he learned traditional typing. Once ds learned to type our dds wanted to learn too, so we had all of them go through the BBS Mat Typing course online, and it was a great intro for them. We also have UltraKey for further practice, but I've heard good things about Mavis Beacon too. The great thing about BBS is that it's highly kid-oriented with noise and graphics etc I also think it's free but don't remember for sure.

One thing I'd watch for if she has fine motor issues (my ds12 also has fine motor challenges) - typing may not be the hugely successful answer to all your dd's dysgraphic challenges. Although my ds types faster than he writes, he still types very slowly relative to other children and simply learning to type didn't enable him to be productive enough at written expression to be successful at school. Voice-to-text is the AT that he's most successful at re writing. Before he had access to voice-to-text on his iPad I still did a lot of scribing for him on longer writing assignments.

polarbear

I think she's talking about Learning Ally

polarbear

Sorry! I hadn't seen your post linking learning ally before I posted that. So, you know the story of my kiddo - reading on grade level (slightly above) and *as far as we know* no dyslexia but has the eye convergence issues ... would learning ally be good for him at this point or no, do you think? (oh and btw, polarbear, I got the accommodations from the school if you happen to check my IEP thread update :)) We have the dragon speak software but still haven't taken it out of thebox yet. I still type his stories for him (I enjoy hearing them - they give me insoght to him )

marytheres - congrats on your IEP!!! I haven't seen the post yet - I'll take a look for it

I haven't subscribed to learning ally yet, so I can't give you an opinion on it (yet lol!). We were told it was important for our dd to listen to audiobooks as much as possible so that she was taking in books at her comprehension ability level, which is much higher than her ability to read visually - so my gut feeling is that anything you can give your ds to "read" by listening would be helpful because it's exposing him to words and concepts that he's intellectually ready for but hasn't caught up to yet in reading.

How is VT going? With our VT dd, she had a huge leap in reading ability kind-of early on, I think around 3 months in. I hope your ds' VT helps!

Best wishes,

polarbear

FWIW, this is the one really big upside I've found in having a child with dysgraphia - having to help scribe and help him with getting his thoughts down on paper has given me such a good insight into his inner world - my dds work much more independently and I get to read what they write, but I don't get to listen and talk to them about it as it's happening, and that's really been a bonus to working with ds

polarbear

Polarbear - just seeing this! VT is going well but I still see his eyes straining ... I guess it is never "cured" huh? I definitely see a big improvement in the reading but again if he has had alot of close work and his eyes are strained he has trouble. But I do see huge improevement as does he. I just hate that he has this (and the hypotonia - I hate that he has any of it.) And I know there are worse things bt I'm kind-of in a mood. I just wish there were a "fix" - every time I upset and start thinking of maybe doing the surgery, I literally run into someone with a child (amazing how at one time I knew nothing about this disability and and now I 'run into' people with it or something similar) who has had the surgery and surgery was aetistically a success, or declared a success when they had it, but a year or two later they are having problems and struggling a great deal with reading. On the one hand it hits me I am doign the right thing but on the other hand I feel like it would be nice if he could just a procedure or surgery that would cure it ... really cure it, ya know.

Anyway, other than being expensive and time consuming VT is going well - he's doing awesome and he loves the therapy. I am thinking of getting the computer program for home to supplement. The VTs aren;t pushing it but I hasked them abotu it and had them demonstrate it me and asked their opinion. I want do all I can to help for DS so.. ut it is expensive and money os a bit tight so I have held off. Your DD didn't do VT homework with a computer program did she? I seem to remember your saying she had VT homework but it wasn't computer, right?

Sorry about the typos - I am too tired and annoyed to fix them, though.

Just chiming in, our DD did not do any computer work for her VT. Our therapist didn't use it. We did a lot of homework that involved very low tech stuff -- printed paper sheets, string, etc. It is a little over two years since DD finished and her eyes seem to be working well. I think that your kid has significantly different eye issues so YMMV.

Thanks for chiming in...Yes, we have these for homework right now, which with all of the stuff we have regular school homework, therapy appointments, soccer, etc... I find I have a harder time fitting it in I feel like we should be doing more. With the low tech stuff I have to do it with him... with the computer VT homework I *think* he can do it a little more independantly (while I cook dinner he can do it and I supervise, kind of thing).

marytheres, my dd eventually had a set of computer exercises to do as part of her VT homework, but it was very late in her VT program, after around 9 months of therapy. Up until that time all of her homework was exercises like knute listed. They weren't intended to be time-intensive (20 minutes per day was recommended), but like you mentioned, it really was tough to fit in with everything else that our kids do - and it took supervision from me to keep her on track, plus some of the exercises had to have a second person participating. To be honest, I hated that part of VT!!! But we pressed on and kept up with the exercises because VT is expensive and because we'd been told by both her therapists and another parent who's child graduated from VT that the exercises were really important.

polarbear

ps - our VT office also used exercises from a computer progam as part of the in-office therapy sessions - it wasn't long, maybe 5-10 minutes at the most.

On the computer issue, we have used computers for other things with mixed success. If the computer instruction is something that my kids find engaging, then my kids have found computer work worthwhile. On the other hand, if it is something that my kids don't want to do then it is often easy to "cheat" on the computer and the whole thing is a waste of time. I don't know anything about the computer VT exercises. I do know that DD hated the regular exercises because they were hard work. I'd be concerned that she would figure out a way to "game the system" on the computer and not get much out of them. I could see her spending a half hour "doing" the exercises on the computer but not putting in the effort and/or being diligent about her technique. Do you think that your kid will be self-motivated on the VT computer exercises? Does the computer give feedback to you as the parent so that you can tell if the kid is faking it?

knute, fwiw, I don't think my dd could have faked her VT computer exercises - they were things that forced her eyes to track etc... if she'd attempted to fake it, it would have been reflected as no progress in her scores. There was a way to see progress over time on my dd's program, and they were also short exercises - no more than 15 minutes total, made up of very short subsets of tasks. DD liked them. OTOH, I think it that the non-computer exercises she did were much more obviously helpful for her vision.

polarbear

ps - fwiw, I'll also add - we've been told that we should take our younger dd for a developmental optometrist eval - and the first horrible parent thought that flung itself into my head was NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Not another YEAR of VT exercises at home.... AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!! (blush). Of course we'll do it if she needs it, but ugh. VT can be very time consuming for the parent involved!

Seriously! DS doesn't mind the exercises BUT as a very creative introvert he needs a decent amount of 'downtime' and 'in-his-own-world-time.' So he is in school until 3pm and by the time we get home it's 3:20/3:30 and we need to do homework and reading and bath and dinner and bed/stories and many days he has a therapy appointment (OT or VT), soccer, and/or allergist (we go once a week for shots trying to get his bad allergies under control). Plus he really needs to wind down with bath and then stories by at the latest 8pm so he can be asleep by around 8:30/9pm. He gets up early in the morning and sometimes I fit some in then but he likes to get up early to 'play' before school (again he's trying to fit in his 'in-his-own-world-time' ) and many times I am tryign to get myself dressed, younger DS dressed and fed, Ds himself dressed and fed, etc... It is SOOOO hard. He enjoys the computer program and I am hoping that could be something to make up for the low-tech homework we are routinely missing at this point.

Soooo, super good news about vision therapy. School is sending DS to a developmental optometrist for an eval and to get started on his VT through the school!

I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE it! I think 50% of the success on this front was me and the 50% being in a really, really good district!!! So thrilled as it will mean going to VT much closer to home and the cost will be covered by the school!!! So happy!!!!

Yay marytheres - that is wonderful!!!! Good job advocating!!!!

polarbear

Reviving this thread in hopes I may be able to get recommendations of apps, etc to load now that we invested in an iPad for DD. She still has the one the district is providing for her out of district placement but the process of getting what she needs loaded has just been SO bogged down. We bought her one ourselves, as a supplement not a replacement, and told the school to load anything and everything they think may be useful. I think they're a bit gun-shy, though. We had been told for weeks that they had lists of apps they wanted to try but it seems they have so far only loaded a couple now that they have the second machine available to them.

Last night we got home and she asked "Mom is it ok if I do some math on my iPad?" Seriously - my kid with every LD in the book - including a math disability - was asking to do math. For fun. On a Friday night. I could not believe it!!!! There was no math app but she asked me to write an addition worksheet up for her so she could take a picture of it and write her answers on the screen.

Any recommendations for *fun* apps she can "play" without noticing that she is learning or reinforcing skills? The AT consultant recommended Luminocity for working memory issues but DD says "it's boring" and doesn't want to play it. She is now 6 weeks into this new school - which is going quite well - but she STILL doesn't have any audio books. She and DH are at the library now trying to load what she is reading in all 3 reading groups (2/3 grade for decoding, 5/6 grade for instructional and 8th grade for comprehension.) She actually asked to able to read aloud with the other kids in the 8th grade group so she will need text and audio. I can't believe I really just typed that. I am just so amazed.

So any suggested apps? As a reminder she is 8 (3rd grade) and has been labeled "NLD-ish" not because she really seems to have NLD but because the neuropsych said "it's easier than saying super high verbal along with dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, math disability, etc." She has HUGE deficits in visual perception, working memory and processing speed. She also has fine motor deficits and speech impediments. They are working on keyboarding and voice-to-text but it is a slow, slow process.

I am also happy to have her access "just for fun" games and apps too. I think anything that increases her comfort level with the technology is probably going to be good for her. I am guessing it will also help in terms of the fine motor, visual perception and maybe even working memory depending on the game. She works so hard just on everyday tasks I want her to be able to just relax and have fun sometimes too.

For straight-up math facts practice, my DD9 enjoys "King of Math." It's pretty easy, though, or at least you have to go through the easy levels to get to the difficult ones. DD9 is anxious and can't handle anything timed, but she likes this one.

I'm so happy for your DD. I know things aren't perfect and there is a lot of work to be done but it sounds like she is moving forwards and that onto itself is amazing after all that she has gone through. I'm sure finally being placed at a school that believes in her made a lot of difference. Yay for her, her school, and her parents for embracing radical acceleration.

Sorry, not much help with math apps. We've tried a bunch but I was never happy with any of them. When it comes to math, my favorite is still DreamBox Learning. It gets visually "messy" time to time but I think if your DD can work through the visual confusion, it could be a good tool for her as the program works on getting students to understand and process mathematical concepts visually. The good news here is that they are releasing iPad version soon:

http://www.dreambox.com/ipad/

Thanks for the tip. We installed the junior version and DD was instantly hooked. I actually like this app. It attacks the same concept from many different angles so they get the practice without the repetition.

Pettson's inventions is a fun app.

Thanks - I loaded both of those this morning along with a whole bunch I found recommended on various LD sites. Right now I am loading just about anything free that looks like it could be appropriate. Anything that looks complicated or costs money I will wait on until we get some more specific recommendations. It's funny how excited she is about things like math and spelling apps. Just having it on the iPad seems to make it interesting. Not sure how long this will last but I want to make the most of it while I can!

Brain pop, brain pop jr and brain pop Spanish have free aps...limited...and then you can pay for the full version for more content.

You may want to check with your school librarian/media specialist- our school library has subscriptions to these (and others); the librarian can provide the passwords.

DS 7 likes numbers league for math - capturing the bad guys by addition. Have math aliens but less interesting

Having a lot of science fun right now with jr astronaut, ned the neuron, deluxe inventions. Human body. Second for brain pop. Lots of good stuff there. Khan academy of course is wonderful - good in that it speaks and writes what is being said. Also bedtime math app is great.

He has liked ansel and Clair go to africa,

For typing we liked typing fingers, very low key but shows you the finger positions and using each finger. And you can slow down the pace. Not a game.

Just for fun nothing redeeming but very enjoyable - perry and where's my water

DeHe